The 1980s were the heyday of the Thatcher counter-revolution, with mass deindustrialisation destroying Britain's manufacturing base. The consequent lay-offs, and Tory economic policies designed to bolster business interests and maximise profits, cast 3.2 million people onto the dole queues by 1983.
The post-war consensus was torn to shreds, with the privatisation of public utilities, curtailment of local democracy and trade union rights, Section 28, cuts to local councils and public services, the poll tax and restrictions on civil liberties and the right to protest.
But this inequality and repression also provoked resistance, rebellion and rage: huge mass protests against government cuts and nuclear weapons, the People's March for Jobs and widespread rioting by working-class youth in Brixton, Toxeth, St Paul's, Moss Side and Tottenham.
It was a period of significant setbacks for left politics, most notably the crushing of the miners’ strike, Tony Benn's defeat in the Labour deputy leadership contest, abolition of the left-controlled Greater London Council, the surcharging and disqualification of councillors who resisted central government rate-capping, Labour's loss of the 1983 and 1987 general elections and my own defeat in the notorious 1983 Bermondsey by-election.
As Maroula Joannou's chapter 8 elucidates, the miners’ strike, and the semi-police-state methods used to destroy it, was a pivotal moment – and in many unexpected ways, not least because it spawned new forms of working-class solidarity and self-help and forged new connections between different and often separate struggles, most notably in the sphere of sexual politics. Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners challenged macho old-labourist attitudes on the coalfields, as did Women Against Pit Closures, which drew strongly on suffragette traditions and on the history of women campaigners during the General Strike of 1926.
These were not the only glimmers of hope amid the debacles and gloom of Thatcherism rampant. Something big stirred within Labour itself during the 1980s. The Left revived and grew. Atrophied and nepotistic local Labour parties were democratised, right-wing Tammy Hall local Labour leaders and MPs were ousted and a whole new generation of social and community activists joined the party. Many became councillors in left-dominated Labour local authorities and proceeded to enact a ground-breaking, visionary late twentieth-century version of municipal socialism in major cities across the UK.
The Conservatives had power at Westminster but the left captured large chunks of the local state and, despite Thatcherism and the more cautious Labour national leadership, transformed it in ways that advanced popular participation, community empowerment, social justice and equality.
Ken Livingstone's Labour administration of the Greater London Council (GLC, 1981–86) epitomised this new left politics and its exhilarating experiment in local democracy, local equality and local socialism. The previously stuffy, remote and exclusive GLC offices and committees were opened up to public consultations and community groups.
For the first time in Britain, politicians in power sought to engage seriously with women's issues and the concerns of marginalised minorities. They sought to tackle the too-often ignored inequalities of race, gender, disability, sexuality and gender identity. The GLC pioneered equal opportunities policies that have since become standard. It set up women's and ethnic minorities’ committees, with membership including outside experts and grass-roots community activists. It also created a Gay Working Party which later produced a report, Changing the World, recommending far-sighted and unprecedented policies to tackle anti-LGBT prejudice, discrimination and hate crime.
The GLC developed pioneering policies on housing, environmental protection and, especially, public transport. Its ‘fares fair’ policy cut travel costs by one-third, with the aim of aiding the mobility of low-income Londoners and incentivising people to not drive in central London, in order to cut congestion and pollution. It was hugely popular but was scuppered by a legal action brought by the Tories. A revised version was eventually implemented in 1983.
Livingstone's administration pioneered municipal economic planning; founding the Greater London Enterprise Board to create employment by investing in the industrial regeneration of London, mostly with money provided by the council and its staff pension fund. It proposed workers’ co-operatives and the creation of London Community Builders to construct new council housing and regenerate existing housing stock.
Similar initiatives were spearheaded by left-wing Labour councils in Manchester, Sheffield and Liverpool (the latter, but not the GLC, is discussed at length in this book). Although their radical ambitions were often stymied by the Thatcher government's caps on local authority spending, they did nevertheless enact many tangible, positive reforms.
The 1980s was, in my mind, the most creative, exciting era for the left in many decades. It has had an impact on British politics and culture ever since. Many of its once trail-blazing radical ideas are the now mainstream consensus; especially around issues of equality, inclusion and diversity.
This book explores and illuminates some of these ideas and events – and many others – that collectively reshaped Labour in the 1980s and which, in some respects, still influence Labour today. The authors offer insights on the past that are issues for debate today regarding the future of progressive politics in the UK.
What happened in the 1980s has been made all the more relevant by the left-wing resurgence that led to the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in 2015. In contrast to the 1980s, this new, twenty-first-century left renaissance has focused on winning national, not local, power. The explosion in party membership far exceeds that in the 1980s and Corbyn is putting an even greater premium on democratising the party and its processes, to make them more participatory, collaborative, transparent and accountable.
Jeremy Corbyn is arguably the most socialist leader of Labour since George Lansbury in the 1930s and his agenda for radical social reform echoes that of Attlee – minus the nationalisation of major industries. However, winning power in the Labour Party is one thing; winning power in the country and Parliament is a much tougher task.
The future of Labour depends, in part, on learning lessons – positive and negative – from the past. The authors of this volume offer a mix of different political and historical perspectives on the 1980s. While I don't share all their analysis, they make points that deserve to be heard and discussed. Go read.